Wow I've been A.W.O.L again but with good reason. I started my new job this last Monday and have been in training and my math class started this week.....just an F.Y.I, my mind is mush.
When I first moved here I got a job as a Personal Care Attendant at a non profit residential home for adults with Traumatic Brain Injury's. It was a good job but I was sort of lied to at my job interview about my hours, and some other important matter pertaining to the job. I also was happy to get work but this job was 25 miles away and over a mountain pass, and where I live is not a great place to drive in the winter for obvious reasons. So after about a month of working 12 hour shifts with no breaks or lunch, 12 hour shifts where I got to go home for 3 hours and then come back to work for another 12 and working days, mids and graveyard all in one week several times a week in messed up combinations....I looked for another job....big surprise. This Monday I started a job as a Treatment Aid at the local state run Chemical Dependency Hospital....and it is a State Job with full benefits (which I didn't get working 40+ at the other job) set work hours and days, only 2 miles from my house and above average salary for where I now live. I'm so much happier now!
I'm learning a lot about how recovery works for addicts/alcoholics and why people end up that way. Just in this last week I have learned so many things especially about why "The Parasite" was the way he was, how addicted he was to certain things, and insights into mental illness (including his) and why and how it co-occurs with addiction. This by no means implys I forgive him for what he did to me but I really understand now just how sick he was (and sure that he still is) and that no matter what I did there was no way he was going to get help, change or what ever. Just in the last week an enormous burden of guilt for the mess my former marriage was in seemed to lift off me. I feel really sorry for him now, not that I forgive him, but for the fact that he is a product of his choices, and nothing I did or could have done would have changed him without his going for real intensive help. In a way though I feel sort of stupid now for all the effort and pain I caused myself beating a dead horse in trying to get him to ask for help and wanting so hard to make things right. I was not the person to make things right, he was and he chose not to. Though I guess hind sight is 20/20 and I'm not a bad person for truly loving someone and trying to get them get help, if I didn't I would not be the empathic and caring person I hope that I am and others perceive me to be. It's just that you can't make people want to change or to treat you better, either the do or they will and if they won't then I will take my love and compassion someplace where it will be appreciated.
It has been a really hard month for me, so many things happened this time of year....perpetrated by You Know Who. I have been having Night Terrors and other scary sleep problems for the past few weeks. I know it will pass by the end of next month and hope with the passing of time that it won't haunt me as much as it does now. I was really proud of myself! I just realized that my former wedding anniversary was two days ago....I didn't even think about it when I was writing the date on like a 1000 pieces of paper at work....it only just now as I'm typing this hit me...ROFL. I think that is pretty good in spite of all things! Wow I'm sitting here thinking of the past few years and what a mess and how much of a mess I was and how happy I am now. Actually it's making me kind of upset though in a way. I keep thinking back to how low and depressed I was, how scared of him and what would happen to me, of some of the things that almost happened and have to say it is pretty scary looking at it from this end. Working with the people that I now do I really feel sort of sorry for them that they fell into drugs and booze, I can really see how someone can fall into it when things are wrong in their life. I really do have a new found appreciation, not that I never have, of my parents and family. Growing up sometimes you think your parents are these horribly unfeeling people who only exist to make your life miserable, then when you grow up all the love (for that is what it was they were teaching you and showing you) and guidance to give you the tools and strength to deal with life when it is a bowl of cherry pits and to keep you from doing things you shouldn't. That is not to say that people who fall into addiction were never loved, many were but that genetics has a part in making you prone to addiction, I just know for me my family and their love made all the difference in my life during the dark times of the past few years and I know it helped me to stay away from things that would have hurt me more and hurt them as well. That is why I feel sorry/pity for You know Who, but I'm glad I feel happier for myself .
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